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All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream.

I have no idea what IWB means but i can see the border from my house. I don't walk around armed and see no need to do so. No one is gonna walk up on my property without the dogs seeing, hearing and maybe eating them. Now I do keep weapons in various places in the house readily available. I keep a 1911 in the bedstand, a winchester 94 by the bedroom door, and 870 in the laundry room and an 270 by the upstairs deck door that I can cover 500 yds in any direction with. But I have never had a problem with illegals. I don't like em and think we ought to be a lot harder on them. I treat them pretty much like I do coyotes. I leave them alone and they leave me alone. And i am certainly not foolish enough to take on a group of drug smugglers, even the sheriff deputies are Leary of that and they got M4's. I do not keep weapons in my trucks there is just too much chance of them being stolen.

Having been to Arizona, you guys have a LOT of land out there that just invites use of a good, scoped and high-powered rifle. No doubt about it, something like an M1A is just about the ideal rifle for where you live. If I lived there, an M1A or a really good AR-10 or 6.5 Grendel would be one of my mainstay rifles for shooting hundreds and hundreds of yards. I would probably have 3 different scopes for each of my high powered rifles and lots of match grade ammo for them. One scope would be for night time use. One scope would be a variable 10 by 40 or 50 power scope for those really long range shots. The other would be a 4 by 12 variable for intermediate shots. And, of course, I would have metal sights for the high speed and close range shooting scenarios.

My pistol of choice would be a compact Glock 19 for carry purposes on me. And I would have a Glock 17 with 20 round or Scherer high capacity 32+ round magazines for around the car and office. Both pistols would have night sights on them and maybe rails for a flashlight or laser that I could mount on them. I might also consider going with a bigger caliber Glock pistol depending on circumstances or what I was doing. But for over all use, the 9 mm Glocks give good performance and decent ammo amounts to use for those sudden unexpected social events.

I would also have all of my guns done in desert brown or sand brown because the black color draws a lot more heat which can be very uncomfortable out there in the summer time.

I have to go to Bisbee today and I'm going to be armed.
Last year one of my students who's Nana still lives in Naco went to see her. He was shot in the Led with an AK47. The thug intimidated the policia but the local cop did grab my student and had the courage to put him in a car and get across the border to the Copper Queen Hospital. They saved his life and leg. The policia were afraid to take on the gang but my students uncles weren't. Two of them are U S MC vets and they openly carry M-4's on that side of the border and have let the gang know that when they see the perp they will shoot him in the same place.
I can't understand why the news media doesn't report what the border is really like.

Threefeathers I can't blame you for carrying at home. I live in rural Alabama. In the last 2 years we have to murders in the my area. Also, about three month ago a woman walked into her home and found a man burglarizing it. She was badly beaten. All three attacters were looking for money for drugs.

It is and it so sad that the border area is getting worse. From the wild west days on crooks could get to the border and be free. In theo old days the Mexican Policia had a sense of duty when it came to killing innocent people especially women and children. Today there is not that inhibition. Many of the thugs are Mexican policemen.

Some years ago my parents bought a ranch in Uvalde County on the Edwards plateau. It is a fairly common sight to see people walking across the property heading north. The couple they bought the property from was a very nice couple who had lived in the area all their lives. Their name was Jernigan and they were still living on the place after my parents bought the property. It was an 8 hour drive for my parents to get to the ranch so the Jernigan’s were still acting as sort of care takers. It was very common for Mr. Jernigan to hire illegal’s for ranch hands around the place. One of the last group apparently talked is co-workers into robbing he place. They broke into the house and killed Mrs. Jernigan and took the guns and found Mr. Jernigan out on the property and killed him too.

Needless to say the were eventually caught simply because anyone that stupid can’t escape getting caught.

I would be armed at all times and where possible, with more than one firearm. I have a high-cap 45ACP and a M1A. Where I live now they stay put away for the most part.

From 1996 to 2006, there were 231 documented incursions onto U.S. soil by the Mexican military - on average, twice per month.

In other words, once every two weeks, the Mexican military purposefully crosses into the United States onto public and private land. Granted, these are only the cases with video or photographic documentation, and only cases that the Executive branch wasn't able to squelch.

The coyotes and drug smugglers with their AKs are bad enough, but if you're able to lay down enough fire to overwhelm them, you have a fairly high chance they'll radio the Mexican military. Under orders from the cartel, they'll roll out with shiny H&K G3s, maybe some new FX-05s, or even a Ma Deuce or two and put themselves between you and the smugglers while they make their way back to Mexican soil. All this and more has been documented with video or photographic evidence, along with the first-hand testimony of federal and local law enforcement officers.

They've done it to the Border Patrol. They've done it to LEOs in Arizona. And recently, they've done it to American citizens on private land. If I lived within sight of the border, I'd have an accurized .308 caliber semiautomatic (probably an AR variant) with all the spare mags I could find, with a high-fidelity night vision scope. I'd also have a really good night-vision spotting scope that mates to a digital video camera with excellent zoom capability. If you didn't record it, it never happened.

And if Homeland Security gets it before Lou Dobbs, it never happened.

For walking around your own property, I wouldn't ever go out without a .45 on the hip and something like an M1 carbine or even an AR. Perimeter security would depend on how close I live to the border, whether my property is part of the smugglers' regular stomping grounds, and whether sparsely suburban landscape or truly acres of ranch. Intel / recon / surveillance is your friend. Spend time watching the border day and night to assess the threat, if any. Talk with neighboring property owners to the east and west, and trade information on recent incursions by either coyotes, smugglers, or the Mexican army.

By the way: if this is the first time you've heard any of this, ask yourself why.

I have to say being from Cincinnati Ohio I haven't heard any of this before. Very interesting thread. The way you guys make it sound it seems like a great place to have a FAL Hbar, or something else capable of sustained suppressive fire handy. Good luck.

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